BRANCHBURG — Residents who want the train horns silenced at the Lehigh Road railway crossing in Branchburg have delivered $30,000 to the township, according to a leader of the effort.

The money, in the form of personal checks ranging from $200 to $2,000 from 54 households, will go toward installing a “power-out indicator” — equipment that lets a train operator know if the crossing’s gates and whistles have stopped working.

The resident, Karina LaMalfa, said that she was “very, very proud” of the community.

LaMalfa is a member of Home Owners for Reducing Noise (HORN), a group of residents near the tracks who have been working to convince Branchburg to set in motion the process to create a quiet zone at Lehigh Road.

A quiet zone is a crossing where a train conductor is not required to blast the train’s horn, providing relief for neighboring residents. Instead, a town works with the railroad, in this case the Norfolk Southern Line, to install extra safety improvements that make up for the lack of the horn blasts.

In 2008, the township formed a subcommittee and hired Maser Consulting, the company that helped establish quiet zones in nearby Hillsborough, to evaluate the crossing at Lehigh. At first, the cost of the quiet zone seemed out of reach, but when a more updated estimate put the needed safety improvements, including the power-out indicator, at $36,000, the cost became more manageable and residents offered to pay for the indicator.

On June 14, the Branchburg Township Committee agreed to fund $6,000 for engineering and consulting, road striping, signage and a temporary increased police presence at the zone in exchange for the residents’ commitment.

“We had been telling the Township Committee that we could do it, but I don’t blame them if perhaps they didn’t believe that we could in this financial situation,” LaMalfa said.

After the Township Committee’s decision, in “four weeks of really solid work,” LaMalfa said that residents living near the tracks went through the nearby community, handing out fliers and talking to people. The bulk of the money came from the 11 streets nearest the crossing, but LaMalfa said that several donations came from people farther out, even three from Readington Township.

When the township received word from the residents that the project was ready to be funded, it released a “memorandum of record” as required by the state to get the process moving. The public now has about 30 days to submit comments or objections to the quiet zone to the township’s assistant administrator. The money was presented to the township on July 28.

From there, any objections will go to the state, and the commissioner of the state Department of Transportation will decide if any of them are valid.

“We’re waiting for this to clear the state hurdle,” said Branchburg Assistant Administrator John Gregory.

For a town to implement a quiet zone, it must get approval from the state Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration before it can go forward. A group consisting of representatives from the state and federal departments, along with Branchburg officials, met on April 20 at the crossing to review the conditions, according to the memorandum.

Their review determined that the power-out indicator was needed and that Branchburg should update the road markings, railroad stop bars and crossing signs.

If the commissioner of transportation doesn’t find any valid objections, Branchburg will have one year to implement safety improvements. The town has already begun work on the striping, bars and signs, Gregory said.

He called the memorandum of record “one more step to the end. It puts us on documented footing with the state of New Jersey.”